Hansi, the Girl Who Loved the Swastika

Spire Christian Comics was an old comics company that, like many other publishers (including Marvel, in its early years), was distributed and printed by a larger company. Archie Comics, the publisher that got famous off of superheroes like The Shield and The Black Hood before changing their name and focusing on kiddie humor comics, distributed Spire’s material. Years before more mainstream efforts to sell Christianity to the younger folks, Spire was producing graphic adaptations of Adam & Eve and Noah’s Ark. But their most notable work is probably their participation in what may have been the first multimedia project: Hansi, the Girl Who Loved the Swastika. The story of Maria Anne Hirschmann, who went through Nazi and Communist occupations in Czechoslovakia but escaped to the West and became a born-again Christian, was adapted into numerous media, including a book, an LP, a comic book, and several other releases now lost to time. These were billed as patriotic Christian stories for a secular America, and they launched Maria Anne’s career as a public speaker, an author, and a major player in American fundamentalist Christianity.